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What can UK retailers expect from Black Friday?

Retailers are gearing up for the biggest promotional day this side of Christmas, so what do industry experts expect to happen?
November 24, 2016

As is usual for retailers, the race is on for Christmas. Except these days, the event itself is preceded by the American import known as Black Friday. The term is actually meaningless in this country, so first, a quick history lesson. It was invented to work like Boxing Day for US residents, who celebrate Thanksgiving the Thursday before. Originally, promotions had little to do with it, the day simply marked the start of the Christmas shopping season in the US. As such, it earned its name because it was the first day of the year when retailers turned profitable, or tipped 'into the black'. But as more retailers cottoned on, so the promotions started to gather momentum. Soon enough, international retailers with significant online prowess such as Amazon (US:AMZ) saw potential in offering one-off cut prices to customers globally, and Britain's retailers have been scrambling to compete ever since.

Last year's Black Friday threw up some interesting trends. Unlike the US where most of the population enjoys a break from work on Black Friday, Britons are still largely confined to the office. This made last year's event in the UK 'online Black Friday'. Despite widespread deals on the high street, stores didn't record a substantial uptick in footfall, but rather a surge in traffic to websites.

Worryingly, some retailers were unable to cope with the high demand, and struggled to fulfil orders. Given high-street footfall numbers have been in steady decline for most of this year, one could assume that if Black Friday bargain hunters make themselves heard at all, it will be via the internet.

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